Cincinnati Teachers To Be Paid on Performance

Cincinnati has become what is believed to be the first public school
district in the country to scrap its traditional salary structure and
replace it with a schedule that bases pay on classroom performance.

The Cincinnati Federation of Teachers ratified the plan Sept. 15, by
a vote of 54 percent to 46 percent, ushering in a setup that will align
educators' compensation with new guidelines for teaching standards,
in-depth assessments, and professional development. Seventy-two percent
of the 3,200-member union turned out for the vote. The school board had
approved the plan unanimously in May.

"We're being held accountable to a set of higher standards—those
that actually produce results in the classroom," said Rick Beck, the
president of the CFT, an affiliate of the American Federation of
Teachers.

To persuade teachers to vote for the initiative, union and district
leaders agreed to delay implementing the new salary schedule until the
2002-03 school year, Mr. Beck said.

At that time, union members will decide whether to continue as
planned with the salary schedule, he said. Seventy percent of the
teachers would have to agree to overturn the policy, an escape clause
supported by the school district. The evaluation system would remain in
place even if the salary schedule reverted to the previous method.
Teachers will continue to be paid on the old salary schedule until that
vote is taken.

Mr. Beck said the union and the school board had agreed to the
postponement because teachers were divided on whether to lend their
support.

Many teachers were worried that an evaluation process wouldn't be
implemented in a meaningful way, Mr. Beck said. Others were convinced
that the union should not interfere in management issues, he said.

"We heard loud and clear they didn't want to have that kind of high-
stakes evaluation without knowing how the system worked," Mr. Beck
said.

Veteran teachers with 27 years of experience—the top of the
pay scale— will earn $56,230 this year under the current system.
Were the new salary schedule in effect, those in the highest category
would be earning $62,500. Beginning teachers under both scales earn
about $30,000.

Five-Tiered System

The plan represents the first move off a single-salary schedule for
an entire school district since 1921 and puts the Ohio district at the
leading edge of a growing trend among schools to try out new forms of
teacher compensation and accountability, said Allan Odden, a professor
of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who helped devise
the policy and is regarded as a national expert on the subject.

Other variations of pay-for- performance are under discussion in
Denver, Indiana, Illinois, Nebraska, New York City, and Wisconsin. A
Los Angeles public charter school has been experimenting with its own
alternative-pay scheme for two years. ("Changing the Rules of the Game,"
June 14, 2000.)

Unlike plans in some districts and states, however, the Cincinnati
model does not link teacher pay to students' test performance. Instead,
it increases pay for educators who meet teaching goals set by the
district.

"The route to improving kids' achievement is to improve
instruction," Mr. Odden said. Pay systems linked to teacher performance
"raise the importance of instruction to more than rhetoric. When you
start messing with people's pay systems, they pay attention."

The Cincinnati initiative was first discussed in 1997 and was
piloted in 10 schools last academic year. The system will be phased in
districtwide over the next five years, a process that has already
begun, Mr. Beck said.

The plan is mandatory for teachers with less than 22 years'
experience—about 2,400 teachers. Those who have been in the
district longer—about 700 educators—will be "grandfathered"
into the long-standing salary-schedule system. Those teachers can opt
into the new system on a voluntary basis.

The hallmark of the plan is the creation of five career categories.
Beginning teachers will be labeled "apprentices" and can progress
through the system to become "novice," "career," "advanced," and
"accomplished" educators, provided they meet specific goals.

Frequent, in- depth evaluations will determine whether teachers
advance in the career categories, stay in the same category, or slide
back into a lower one.

A principal and a consulting teacher, who will be trained
specifically to help with the evaluations, will conduct assessments of
each teacher on six occasions at least once every five years. Teachers
will be given ratings of 1 to 4 in four areas that reflect 16
standards. They also will be required to submit portfolios that include
logs of parent contacts, sample lesson plans and student work, a list
of professional-development activities, and a grade book.

Teachers will receive the comprehensive reviews two years after
being hired, and three years after moving into the novice level.
Educators in the career, advanced, and accomplished categories will
receive comprehensive reviews every five years, but can request them
annually should they aspire to move to the next achievement level.

Principals will provide one-hour annual reviews in years when
comprehensive reviews are not given.

The plan eradicates some of the salary protections that were in
place under the old structure, except for those teachers given
grandfathered status.

Teachers who slide back in career categories will be given two years
to improve before their pay is cut. Educators who return to the novice
category for more than one year will be fired. And teachers who do not
advance beyond the apprentice category within two years will not have
their contracts renewed.

The new evaluation method is significantly different from the
current one, in which principals assess teachers for one hour annually
and grade them either "satisfactory" or "unsatisfactory."

A Better Way?

The plan thrilled Rochelle S. Johnson, a reading specialist who
teaches at Winton Montessori School and served on the team that created
the pay-for-performance plan.

Evaluations will be far less subjective under the new system and,
thus, more fair, she said.

"Now, when evaluators go into the classroom, they'll know what to
look for ... because it is written in black and white," Ms. Johnson
said.

Moreover, she added, both rookie and veteran teachers will be more
motivated under the plan to do good work and be better recognized and
rewarded for their efforts.

Critics argue, though, that the Cincinnati evaluation system is not
the best way to monitor good teaching and learning.

"Student learning can be evaluated by how much they know at the
beginning of contact with a teacher and at the end of contact with a
teacher," said Chester E. Finn Jr., the president of the
Washington-based Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and a former assistant
U.S. secretary of education during the Reagan administration. "You
could use student portfolios to do that, oral exams, student projects,
or essay reviews. A classroom visit may or may not get close to student
learning."

Such criticisms don't faze Superintendent Steven J. Adamowksi. "All
research in that area contradicts [Mr. Finn's] notion," he said. "All
eyes of the nation are on us. We can't afford not to do this well."

Vol. 20, Issue 4, Pages 1, 15

Published in Print: September 27, 2000, as Cincinnati Teachers To Be Paid on Performance

Related Stories

Read an accompanying chart, "Career Levels," outlining
the five stages of Cincinnati's plan.

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